Redeeming Features
by PatronSaintOfBEGA
Summary: For Dixon Oriole! Because sometimes, redemption is a pretty stupid thing. And Bryan cheats at chess. And so does Tala. Rated for a bit of language, review and I love you!


**Redeeming Features**

**-------**

Bryan likes Tala.

At an unreasonable eight-forty-five a.m., on a Sunday morning, he _likes_ Tala. And fully realises that this is pretty fucking stupid.

Tala - having theoretically gone to get a coffee, but actually spent over half the time hovering in the kitchen doorway, watching him - comes back and sits down again on the opposite side of the table. Squints neurotically at the pieces on the chequered board set between them. Slams his mug down on the tabletop to one side, shaking hot coffee off his fingers.

"You cheated, Kuznetsov," he hisses, still shaking his hand. Bryan grins like a Rottweiler; he suspects the coffee must have still been close to boiling, as three of Tala's fingers are scalded bright white.

"So did you," he grinds out.

"I did not." Tala brushes his hand on his dressing gown, glaring at it, and crosses his legs at the knee. Bryan says nothing. "When," he demands eventually.

"Earlier."

"When earlier?" Tala has a short temper, Bryan thinks. Easier wound up than a clockwork mouse.

"When I went to the bathroom. Six-fifteen. Your queen was under threat, and you moved it four places." His supposed captain sneers at him, aggravatedly pushing away some trespassing strands of hair. Which, Bryan notes, are morning-neglected and a colour approximating to auburn, in the light.

"You can't do anything about it now."

"It's against the rules," Bryan points out, because Tala is a stickler for rules. Not to mention a sucker for provocation.

"Tcha! I'm trying to win, aren't I? Shut up and move."

Bryan leans back in his chair, arms crossed.

"It's your turn."

Tala shoots him a look of utter disdain, concealing his face in the pristine white coffee mug, and definitely not colouring because he already _knew_ that, idiot. Bryan is about to say something else, when a noise at the door denotes the arrival of the mail. He goes to retrieve it, because Ian and Spence are out of the house on their own business, and Tala's face makes it clear he is not doing _anything_ for Bryan in the next twenty years.

The hall is small and narrow, with hospital-green carpet and walls that are no colour to speak of. Bryan checks the CCTV screen for genuine postmen before even touching the mail; the one envelope today has a BBA logo stamped on it, and so is brought and chucked onto the kitchen counter for someone else's attention. The counter's lino top is cracked and coming up at one corner; Tala, in charge of finances, has not spent money on the house. He's spent money on surveillance. Yes, it's a cramped, shabby two-floor terrace, in a ratty neighbourhood, but they know _exactly_ who's coming in and going out. And like hell are any of them afraid of muggers, anyway.

He goes and sits down at the chess table again, next to one wall of what could roughly be considered a sitting room by virtue of it having a television. Tala stares at him icily, face still immersed in his coffee.

"You cheated," Bryan tells him, without even looking at the board, "You moved your - priest."

"Bishop," Tala corrects snippily, taking another sip, "So?"

"Mail was from the BBA."

"Huh." He's the epitome of unimpressed, folding both arms and leaning away from the table, _looking_ away from the table, out of the room's one window. His eyes are almost colourless in the sunlight. Bryan's hair looks colourless in any light, and he can't see the advantage of it being otherwise; Tala has enough colour in his hair, his permanently-furious eyes and acid mouth, for an army.

"It's your move."

And he can push and shove and snap and nag just as much as he pleases, because there isn't a single thing about Bryan that he doesn't know. Except the one Bryan is keeping from him at the moment, just to aggravate him - which really doesn't take much doing at all.

"Damn it, Kuznetsov, just fucking _move_."

"I'm thinking," he says, smirking to prove he isn't, as if Tala didn't already _know_ that. His bare foot kicks Bryan under the table, petulantly, as hard as he can manage. He's glaring like sun off the polar ice caps, sharp cheekbones reminding Bryan fondly of his very favourite pair of steel kitchen knives.

"_Damn_ it, you - " Tala begins, thunking his coffee mug down again. Bryan is up from the table in one movement, grabbing him to his feet by the lapel of his dressing gown and catching him with an arm around his back that very nearly knocks the breath out of him. Kissing him above the hairline, pointlessly and with _no_ explanation whatso_ever_! Except,

"I like you," growled by his ear, and a second later, "It's pretty fucking stupid."

Mercifully, he has nothing to say to that. Just swipes his hand vainly towards the coffee mug, and feels it tangle under Bryan's elbow instead.

"Bastard."

And Bryan, to whom Tala is as rigidly hostile and unappreciative as he'd hoped, feels fucking _bulletproof_. Not, of course, because anything fired at this moment would hit the other first, but because anything of a decent calibre would go right through _both_ of them.

**-------**

**For Dixon Oriole, along with my undying love! HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY!**

**...very early birthday. I'm doing this wrong, aren't I? Augh.**

**NOTES:**

**- By request, as you may have gathered, for Dixon Oriole, feather-duster's current deity. The original request was: "Redeeming qualities...Why these are good people worthy of our love. Worthy of one another's love. I have my theories, granted, but I want to hear yours. Unglossed and honest, but make this a piece to restore one's faith in mankind. Restore because it's been lost."**

**...feather-duster is sooooo doing this wrong. Oops. Their redeeming qualities are, umm, they're bastards. But they're each other's bastards! And they both cheat horribly at chess. Gah. -falls over-**

**...and I changed it to "Redeeming Features", for teh funny. Sorry.**

**- Brought on, also, by feather-duster's Sims of Bryan and Tala, who both attempt to cheat at chess, and then get mad with each other for cheating. And then do the same thing again, and again, and again, and again...**

**- Coffee is important.**

**- No, feather-duster does not know what Ian and Spence were doing out of the house at that time on a Sunday morning. Fill in the details here. Maybe they were at the supermarket. Or shagging on a park bench. Who knows?**

**- Colour is interesting.**

**- This is pretty fucking stupid, eh? Augh.**

**- Review and I love you! And I don't even _play_ chess.**

**P.S. Dixon, I love you anyway!! Happy early birthday! **


End file.
